The Nord Stream pipeline to start operating on November 8
Baku, November 2 (AZERTAC). The strategic Nord Stream pipeline, lying on the Baltic Sea which will supply natural gas to Germany and other European countries, will begin operations on November 8, said Alexei Miller, chairman of the Russian consortium Gazprom.
At the meeting with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Miller set out to study the possibilities of increasing the number of branches of the Nord Stream.
After the construction of the first branch, the traffic volume will amount to 27.500 million cubic meters of gas, while the second thread, whose launch is scheduled for fall 2012, will increase the volume to 55.000 million cubic meters.
The estimates of Russian experts say that over the next ten years the European Union countries will need to increase its imports of natural gas at 200.000 cubic meters, so that the Nord Stream could cover 25% of this increase.
Although the project was in the papers during the decade of the nineties, was particularly promoted to middle of the last decade by Putin and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who after leaving his government led the committee shareholders of the Nord Stream operating company.
The operating company consortium is owned by Russian Gazprom, the majority shareholder with 51% of the capital, and by German BASF and E.ON (15.5% each), by Dutch N. V. Nederlandse Gasunie, the only gas operator in the Netherlands (9%), and France`s GDF Suez (9%).
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